It's Great When You Get In

They told me the water was lovely,
    That I ought to go for a swim,
The air was maybe a trifle cool,
    "You won't mind it when you get in"
So I journeyed cheerfully beach-ward,
    And nobody put me wise,
But everyone boosted my courage
    With an earful of jovial lies.

The Sound looked cold and clammy,
    The water seemed chilly and gray,
But I hastened into my bathing suit
    And floundered into the spray.
Believe me, the moment I touched it
    I realized then and there,
That the fretful sea was not meant for me
    But fixed for a polar bear.

I didn't swim for distance
    I didn't do the crawl,
(They asked why I failed to reach the raft,
    And I told them to hire a hall.)
But I girded my icy garments
    Round my quaking limbs so blue,
And I beat it back to the bath house
    To warm up for an age or two.

I felt like a frozen mummy
    In an icy winding sheet.
It took me over an hour
    To calm my chattering teeth.
And I sympathized with Peary,
    I wept for Amundsen's woes,
As I tried to awaken some life in
    My still unconscious toes.

So be warned by my example
    And shun the flowing sea,
When the chill winds of September
    Blow sad and drearily.
Heed not the tempters' chatter
    Pass them the skeptics' grin
For the greatest bull that a boob can pull
    Is "It's great when you get in."

by Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) , ""It's Great When You Get In""

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

by Gary Bachlund , "It's Great When You Get In", 2008. [medium or high voice and piano]

Date added to the website: 2009-03-06.

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